Problem is, the motivation is to substitute China as the most important
enemy. Why must we have a designated enemy?
Miriam
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Establishment is Changing its Tune on Russia
September 9, 2019
Russophobic rhetoric persists in Washington, but a counter-argument is
emerging.
G7 leaders gather for a "family" photo, Aug. 25, 2019, Biarritz, France.
(White House/Shealah Craighead)
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
Are Western democracies, the U.S. and France in the lead, rethinking the
hostility toward Russia they conjured out of nothing since Moscow responded
to the coup Washington cultivated in Ukraine five years ago? Will Trump
eventually succeed in putting ties with Russia on a more productive path -
triumphing over the hawks hovering around him? Have the Europeans at last
grown weary of following the U.S. lead on Russia even as it is against their
interests to do so?
In desultory fashion over the past month or so, we have had indications that
the policy cliques in Washington are indeed reconsidering the Cold War II
they set in motion during the Obama administration's final years. And
President Donald Trump, persistent in his effort to reconstruct relations
with Russia, now finds an unlikely ally in Emmanuel Macron. This suggests a
nascent momentum in a new direction.
"Pushing Russia away from Europe is a profound strategic mistake," the
French president asserted in a stunning series of remarks to European
diplomats immediately after the Group of 7 summit in Biarritz late last
month.
This alone is a bold if implicit attack on the hawkish Russophobes Trump now
battles in Washington. Macron then outdid himself: "We are living the end of
Western hegemony," he told the assembled envoys.
It is difficult to recall when a Western leader last spoke so truthfully and
insightfully of our 21stcentury realities, chief among them the inevitable
rise of non-Western nations to positions of parity with the Atlantic world.
You have nonetheless read no word of this occasion in our corporate media:
Macron's startling observations run entirely counter to the frayed
triumphalism and nostalgia that grip Washington as its era of preeminence
fades.
President Donald J. Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron in joint
press conference in Biarritz, France, site of the G7 Summit, Aug. 26, 2019.
(White House/ Andrea Hanks)
There is much to indicate that the West's aggressively hostile posture
toward Russia remains unchanged. The Russophobic rhetoric emanating from
Washington and featured daily in our corporate television broadcasts
continues unabated. Last month Washington formally abandoned the bilateral
treaty limiting deployment of intermediate-range ballistic missiles, signed
with Moscow in 1987. As anyone could have predicted, NATO now suggests it
will upgrade its missile defense systems in Poland and Romania. This amounts
to an engraved invitation to the Russian Federation to begin a new arms
race.
But a counter-argument favoring a constructive relationship with Russia is
now evident. This is not unlike the abrupt volte-face in Washington's
thinking on North Korea: It is now broadly accepted that the Korean crisis
can be resolved only at the negotiating table.
The Times Are Changing
The New York Times seems to be on board with this this sharp turn in foreign
policy. It reported the new consensus on North Korea in a news analysis on
July 11. Ten days later it published another arguing that it's time to put
down the spear and make amends with Moscow. Here is the astonishing pith of
the piece: "China, not Russia, represents by far the greater challenge to
American objectives over the long term. That means President Trump is
correct to try to establish a sounder relationship with Russia and peel it
away from China."
It is encouraging that the Times has at last discovered the well-elaborated
alliance between Moscow and Beijing. It took the one-time newspaper of
record long enough. But there is another feature of this article that is
important to note: It was published as a lead editorial. This is not
insignificant.
It is essential, when reading the Times, to understand the close - not to
say corrupt - relations it has maintained with political power in Washington
over many generations. This is well-documented in histories of the paper and
of institutions such as the CIA. An editorial advancing a policy shift of
this magnitude almost certainly reflects the paper's close consultations, at
senior levels of management, with policy-setting officials at the National
Security Council, the State Department, or at the Pentagon. The editorial is
wholly in keeping with Washington's pronounced new campaign to designate
China as America's most dangerous threat.
It is impossible to say whether Trump is emboldened by an inchoate shift of
opinion on Russia, but he flew his banner high at the Biarritz G-7. Prior to
his departure for the summit in southwest France he asserted that Russia
should be readmitted to the group when it convenes in the U.S. next year.
Russia was excluded in 2014, following its annexation of Crimea in response
to the coup in Kiev.
Trump repeated the thought in Biarritz, claiming there was support among
other members for the restoration of the G-8. "I think it's a work in
progress," he said. "We have a number of people that would like to see
Russia back."
Macron is plainly one of those people. It was just after Trump sounded his
theme amid Biarritz's faded grandeur - and what an excellent choice for a
convention of the Western powers - that the French president made his own
plea for repairing ties with Russia and for Europe to escape its fate as "a
theater for strategic struggle between the U.S. and Russia."
Biarritz from the Pointe Saint-Martin, 1999. (Wikimedia Commons)
"The European continent will never be stable, will never be secure, if we
don't pacify and clarify our relations with Russia," Macron said in his
address to Western diplomats. Then came his flourish on the imminent end of
the Atlantic world's preeminence.
"The world order is being shaken like never before. It's being shaken
because of errors made by the West in certain crises, but also by the
choices made by the United States in the past few years- and not just by the
current administration."
Macron is an opportunistic main-chancer in European politics, and it is not
at all certain how far he can or will attempt to advance his new vision of
either the West or Europe in the Continent's councils of state. But as
evidence of a new current in Western thinking about Russia, the non-West in
general, and Europe's long-nursed desire for greater independence from
Washington, the importance of his comments is beyond dispute.
The question now is whether or how soon better ties with Moscow will
translate into practical realities. At present, Trump and Macron share a
good idea without much substance to it.
Better US-Russia Ties May Be in Pipeline
But Trump may have taken a step in the right direction. Within days of his
return from Biarritz, he put a hold on the Ukraine Security Assistance
Initiative, a military aid program that was to provide Kiev with $250
million in assistance during the 2019 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1 and
runs to Sept. 30, 2020. The funds are designated for weaponry, training and
intelligence support.
Trump has asked his national security advisers to review the commitment. The
delay, coming hard on his proposal to readmit Russia to a reconstituted G-8,
cannot possibly be read as a coincidence.
There will be other things to watch for in months to come. High among these
is Trump's policy toward the Nord Stream 2 pipeline linking Russian gas
fields to terminals in Western Europe, thereby cutting Ukraine out of the
loop. Trump, his desire to improve ties with Moscow notwithstanding, has
vigorously opposed this project. The Treasury Department has threatened
sanctions against European contractors working on it. If Trump is serious
about bringing Russia back into the fold, this policy will have to go. This
may mean going up against the energy lobby in Washington and Ukraine's many
advocates on Capitol Hill.
To date, U.S. threats to retaliate against construction of Nord Stream 2
have done nothing but irritate Europeans, who have ignored them, while
furthering the Continent's desire to escape Washington's suffocating
embrace. This is precisely the kind of contradiction Macron addressed when
he protested that Europeans need to begin acting in their own interests
rather than acquiesce as Washington force-marches them on a never-ending
anti-Russia crusade.
Macron may prove a pushover, or a would-be Gaullist who fails to make the
grade. Or he may have just announced a long-awaited inflection point in
trans-Atlantic ties. Either way, he has put highly significant questions on
the table. It will be interesting to see what responses they may elicit, not
least from the Trump White House.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the
International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, author and lecturer.
His most recent book is "Time No Longer: Americans After the American
Century" (Yale). Follow him on Twitter @thefloutist. His web site is Patrick
Lawrence. Support his work via his Patreon site.
